A week ago at the Chronicle of Higher Education's Brainstom blog, Naomi Schaefer Riley wrote a post titled "The Most Persuasive Case for Eliminating Black Studies? Just Read the Dissertations." As it happens, though, Riley didn't read any of the dissertations she mocked. She just read the titles and unilaterally declared them useless. "What a collection of left-wing victimization claptrap," she grumbled, "The best that can be said of these topics is that they’re so irrelevant no one will ever look at them."

A firestorm ensued, and yesterday the Chronicle fired Riley.

It was a snarky blog post. Presumably, Naomi Schaefer Riley figured that being married to a black guy, Jason Riley of the WSJ op-ed page, was protection against the R-word. Think again ...

Kevin could have more economically phrased his title: "The Perils of Criticizing Blacks."